Condos for sale!

I can't for the life of me fathom why, but it seems pre-sales on condos at Vancouver's Olympic Village have been a bit sluggish of late.

In fact, last fall, only two of the Bob Rennie-marketed homes were scooped up, leaving 480 or so units still on the market at what's being called Millennium Water - Vancouver's Last Waterfront Community.

Ken Bayne, the city's GM of business planning and services, broke the news delicately to council Wednesday.

"There's little uptake on that at this point," he said, serving his sales update with a slice of understatement.

But at this point, the folks at city hall would appear to be breathing a sigh of relief with today's news that it had bought out the loan on the Olympic Village project from struggling New York-based hedge fund Fortress Investments.

For a sum of $319.5 million, the city now holds the purse strings on the project, effectively becoming the banker for developers Millennium.

The deal, officials are quick to point out, saves taxpayers $90 million in interest payments compared to what it would have cost the city to stick with Fortress. I suppose that's kind of like finding a dollar-off-coupon outside a theatre showing a movie you don't really want to watch.

"For the first time since taking office ten weeks ago, we are finally able to share some good news with the taxpayers of Vancouver on the financing of the Olympic Village project," Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson gushed in his press release today.

In person, councillors were a bit more subdued.

"This is the best of a bad situation," said Vision colleague Raymond Louie.

In any case, it appears some at city hall suspected all along that Fortress may not have been the "ideal choice" to back Millennium's loan.

It was Millennium that first brought the U.S. firm to the table. The financier was willing to take the project from a pre-design stage to completion.

"That was a very attractive looking arrangement of the day, for the developer," said Bayne.

The only problem, as far as the city was concerned, was that Fortress required some kind of guarantee to get involved, since Millennium didn't technically own the land.

Fast forward to today, and as of 10 a.m. this morning, Fortress is no longer in the picture.

Now the concern seems to be that Millennium, anxious to get some cash flow going in what may still be a murky residential sales market, doesn't end up holding a fire sale on its condos.

Not to worry, councillors were told. The original Fortress loan agreement, which Vancouver now inherits, contains wording that limits how low the prices can go.

Now, what should we do about that other multi-million-dollar problem at the Olympic Village?

'I'm not trying to re-fight the election': Ladner

There will now be two parallel investigations into Vancouver’s $100-million Olympic Village loan saga, after council unanimously voted to hire its own lawyer to explore how sensitive city information was leaked.

It extends a controversy that exploded in the middle of the civic election campaign and threatens to drag on as a new council begins its term. The investigation was pushed by NPA Coun. Peter Ladner, who lost a bid for the mayor’s seat this month.

“I'm not trying to re-fight the election here or suggest that this issue was a determining factor in the election. I don't believe it was,” Ladner said.

“But I do think there was an ethical breach here, the likes of which I have never seen since I've been in this council chamber."

Opposition councillors, however, called the move “sour grapes” while voting to support it.

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As the World Turns: Election Edition

This is just getting silly now.

Thursday's update from the Olympic Village loan saga is Vision Coun. Raymond Louie's terse reaction to a Global TV report that stops just short of blaming him in this political Whodunnit.

“Someone at city hall is maliciously putting out false information to the media in an attempt to destroy my reputation,” Louie told a Thursday afternoon news conference, as reported by my esteemed colleague Monte Paulsen at The Tyee. [Myself, I was at my desk ostensibly trying to work on a story about light rail. How foolish.]

“The story that aired at 6 p.m. last night on Global TV casts aspersions on me that are completely untrue,” Louie said. “I am considering legal action over the insinuation that I had any involvement with regards to Coun. Ladner’s in-camera document.”

Monte will have more on The Tyee tomorrow. The no-less esteemed Frances Bula also opines on this "bizarre twist."

"City managers are clearly leaking negative information about Vision councillors to the media," she writes. "Now city staff are getting embroiled.

"This can’t end well."

It can, however, end.

Who are you voting for?

Family portrait

Hey look, it's Vision's Raymond Louie with a whole bunch of NPA candidates!

From NPA council candidate Sean Bickerton's website.

Vision slate wants car free Sundays (free ice cream up for debate)

The "We're not really a slate" slate of Visionites Kash Dhaliwal, Kerry Jang and Andrea Reimer wants a three-month trial run of car free zones in Vancouver. It's true, they sent it in an e-mail just now.

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